Graduate Students Invited to Make Presentations, Attend Meetings

• By Mark Hendricks
• February 8, 2019

The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) has invited Sharavan Ramachandran and Nehal Gupta, graduate students from the School of Pharmacy’s Graduate Program in Pharmaceutical Sciences (GPPS), to make oral and poster presentations April 6-9 in Orlando, Florida during ASBMB’s Experimental Biology Meeting and Spotlight Session. ASBMB and the Cayman Chemical Company also have provided both students with a graduate/postdoctoral travel award to attend the event.

Ramachandran’s abstract is titled, “Pimavanserin tartrate: A potential drug for pancreatic cancer therapy in future.” Gupta’s abstract is titled, "Antimetastatic potential of Atovaquone against triple negative breast cancer: Involvement of the integrin-FAK-Src pathway.” Both students work as research assistants for the Department of Immunotherapeutics and Biotechnology in the laboratory of Sanjay K. Srivastava, Ph.D. Their submissions were selected from among more than 1,400 abstracts that were screened for the event.

The Society of Toxicology’s (SOT) Stem Cells Specialty Section also named Ramachandran an Excellence in Research Award recipient. He will accept the award March 10-14 in Houston at SOT’s 58th Annual Meeting & ToxExpo.

Other GPPS students who recently received travel awards to upcoming meetings and conferences include:

Mohammad Ashraf-Uz-Zaman, a research assistant for the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the laboratory of Nadezhda German, Ph.D., who was selected by the American Chemical Society to receive a Division of Medicinal Chemistry Travel Award for their meeting March 31-April 4 in Orlando, Florida.

Md. Sanaullah Sajib and Fatema Tuz Zahra, research assistants in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences laboratory of Constantinos Mikelis, Ph.D., received Graduate/Postdoctoral Travel Awards to attend the ASBMB Experimental Biology meeting April 6-9 in Orlando, Florida. Sajib’s abstract, titled “Role of Endothelial RhoA in Melanoma and Lung Cancer Trans-Endothelial Migration and Metastasis,” was accepted for an oral presentation to be given during the meeting at the Mechanisms of Carcinogenesis session of the American Society for Investigative Pathology programming society.

Ali Sifat, a research assistant in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences lab of Thomas Abbruscato, Ph.D., who was selected by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics to participate in the ASPET Mentoring Network: Coaching for Career Development and will receive a Mentoring Network Travel Award to attend ASBMB’s Experimental Biology meeting.

Kumari “Iti” Kaushik, a research assistant for the Department of Immunotherapeutics and Biotechnology in the laboratory of Sanjay K. Srivastava, Ph.D., received a travel grant from the Cayman Chemical Company to attend the Experimental Biology meeting.

Shyanne Page, a research assistant for the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the lab of Abraham Al-Ahmad, Ph.D., has been selected to give an oral presentation at the Women’s Cardiovascular and Brain Health Symposium 2019 February 22 at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, Texas. Her presentation is titled, “Wnt of change: Determining the effect of the Wnt/b-catenin pathway on the BBB during ischemic/re-oxygenation stress.” The American Society for Investigative Pathology programming society also has invited Page to make a presentation during the Vascular Biology and Pathology Minisymposium that is part of the ASBMB Experimental Biology meeting. That presentation is titled, “Determining the effect of the WNT/b-catenin pathway on the ischemic blood-brain barrier in vitro and in vivo.”